#i'm writing this instead of studying

[navymaverick]

Remember that scene in Infinity war where Tony snaps his fingers and everyone thinks he's gonna die but then a figure walks in and is like "I didn't save your life in a cave all those years ago for you to die like this." And Tony is like "Yinsen?" And then Yinsen is a genius as per usual and saves him and Tony survives and Steve returns the stones and comes back with Nat and they all live happily ever after? REMEMBER???

[paristandard]

recent comm of Vanitas of the Blue Moon!

[yeoldenews]

A mother's word for word transcription of the imaginary phone call her four-year-old made to Santa Claus in 1911.

(source: The Harbor Beach Times, December 22, 1911.)

Through some outrageous case of serendipity I found a recording of another phone call this same child made 60 years later. Though I have to say his choice of conversational partner is a definite downgrade from the first call.

[bea-l-t]

I see a lot of posts about how people want the Moriyamas to be taken down in the next two books. And, like... same! Yes, that would be incredible, and Jean, Kevin, and Neil deserve that ending.

BUT there is a tiny part of my English-major, I-have-to-see-symbolism-in-everything brain that's okay if that doesn't happen? Like, as crazy as the mafia stuff can be, what if we paralleled the Moriyamas to the trauma that these characters have endured? Trauma doesn't just go away or dissolve, but its presence does not eliminate the possibility of living and growing and being happy. Jean might never be totally without his ties to the Moriyamas, but he can still live a full life. He can still have his happy ending.

[thepreciouspurrsian]

Basim Across Timelines: Mirage vs Valhalla vs Modern 🔎 (open to discussion)

Mirage Basim

Age & Experience: Young, passionate, eager, impulsive. Still becoming/growing.

Motivation: Wants to belong. Seeks meaning, justice, purpose and identity.

Personality: Passionate, emotional, idealistic, curious, impulsive, quietly hopeful.

Emotional Depth: Wears his heart quietly on his sleeve. Emotions close to the surface, not fully processed.

Connection to Loki: Hints and dreams, fragmented visions, haunted but unaware.

How he loves: Awkward, shy, desperate and starved for affection he doesn’t believe he deserves, clumsy but sincere.

Fears: Being left behind, being “nothing”, being insignificant, forgotten, alone or rejected.

Trust: Hesitant but possible, given cautiously, broken easily.

Biggest Conflict: His own identity, Who is he really? vs the role he’s expected to play. (این بیتی؟ من انا؟/where’s my home? Who am I?)

Symbolic Role: The seeker of truth, searching for his path.

Tone & Dialogue: Curious, emotional, sometimes uncertain. Often asks questions to understand.

Intent & Purpose: Seeking identity, meaning and justice. Driven by a need to belong.

Skills: Still learning, excellent at stealth, parkour, quick thinking.

Position in the Hidden Ones: New recruit of the Hidden Ones. Initiate. Apprentice.

Human Relationships: Craves connection, specially with his Mentor and friends. Builds bonds slowly but genuinely.

Worldview: Idealistic with a tinge of doubt and guilt. Believes change is possible.

Valhalla & Modern Basim are just down below: ⬇️

Valhalla Basim

Age & Experience: Older, mature, calculating, forged by betrayal and hardened by pain. Already became.

Motivation: Wants revenge. Seeks closure, maybe even chaos. Justice warped by pain.

Personality: Cold, intense, calculating and sharp. Logic over sentiment.

Emotional Depth: Burying emotions under layers of control. Deep emotions buried under iron discipline.

Connection to Loki: Fully awakened. Wears the burden of duality. The voice inside has a name.

How he loves: Silent, fierce , protective, his love is strategy and instinct. Quiet but he overprotects more than he speaks.

Fears: Losing control and becoming someone he can’t come back from. Losing himself to revenge or to Loki.

Trust: Rare. Earned at great cost and once earned, unshakable and defended with fire.

Biggest Conflict: The weight of what he knows and what he’s become. Who he is vs what he’s become.

Symbolic Role: The ghost in the machine. Watching. Waiting. Pulling strings. Loki guiding him. (Basim and Loki aren’t the same. Two different individuals, okay?)

Tone & Dialogue: Calm, sharp, layered with hidden meaning. Speaks less but every word is loaded.

Intent & Purpose: Seeking revenge, truth and cosmic justice. Purpose has hardened into resolve.

Skills: Master of deception, combat, stealth and manipulation. Deadly and precise.

Position in the Hidden Ones: Mentor of the Hidden Ones on an exile. Veteran, rogue. Has distanced himself from the hidden ones. Independent.

Human Relationships: Keeps people at a distance. Loyalty is rare but unbreakable when earned.

Worldview: Cynical. Sees the world as a system to be manipulated not mended.

Modern Basim

Age & Experience: Ancient soul in a modern shell. Centuries of knowledge and scars.

Motivation: Balance, manipulation. Preparing for what’s to come.

Personality: Controlled, detached, as always ten steps ahead.

Emotional Depth: Emotions turned into strategy, still present but weaponized.

Connection to Loki: Symbiosis or struggle? Hard to say. The line is blurred and he may no longer care. Have made peace with the duality inside. Basim seems to be in control of the body. Still, Loki’s motivations, rage and past relationships are clearly steering many of Basim’s modern day actions.

How he loves: Purposeful and intense. Love becomes survival —ruthless but real.

Fears: Losing control or worse; losing humanity.

Trust: Practically nonexistent at this point but if given, it means everything.

Biggest Conflict: Who he serves vs who he used to be and whether he still cares.

Symbolic Role: The keeper of truth and its consequences. The judge and holder of knowledge. (I’m not sure if Modern Basim has completely handed over control to Loki, if they still coexist somehow or if Loki is partly gone.)

Tone & Dialogue: Measured, deliberate, almost surgical. Rarely speaks more than necessary.

Intent & Purpose: Managing outcomes. Balancing agendas. Driven by foresight more than feeling.

Skills: Ancient assassin with modern tech expertise. Efficient and unpredictable.

Position in the Hidden Ones: Cooperates with William Miles. Operates independently. Wields knowledge like a weapon.

Human Relationships: Detached. Relationships are either tools or vulnerabilities. (rare exceptions may exist)

Worldview: Coldly realistic, burdened by knowledge and duality. The world is cruel but not without design.

[amaradangeli]

So, turns out I'm really fucking writing this thing, so I'd love it if you wanted to read it. All Rivers (have to) Bend (AO3)

Summary:

Jackson is safe. Joel Miller knows better than to trust that. Peace isn’t something he understands — it's not something he deserves. He’s never questioned the price of survival, never lingered on choices that couldn’t be undone. The life he’s built is functional, necessary, distant. Protecting people has never been optional, it’s who he is. He’s lost more than he’s saved, and the weight of that doesn’t disappear in Jackson. Then, someone enters his orbit — not loudly, not all at once, but in a way he can’t ignore. He’s kept his distance for years, believing that caution is the only way to live with loss. But this? This is different. For the first time in a long time, survival isn’t the only thing that matters.

Notes:

Things I have done: Watched the first 11 episodes of TLOU on HBO. Fallen down a rabbit hole of Joel Miller content. Read a lot of wiki & watched some cut scenes from the games. Watched clips from S2E3 and onward online. Read close to a million words of fic. Things I haven’t done: Attempted to reconcile the game universe to the show universe. Watched anything past the end of S2E2 (including S2E6). Much research on the canon (or fanon) of Jackson. All my classwork. What I know: I’ve written as much of this story as is posted. Each ‘chapter’ is really just the next moment in what will (hopefully) be something of a character study. I’ve been known to hyperventilate a plot into a paper bag. I’ve also been known to write tens of thousands of words with no plot in sight. My life is busy. That I love to write and miss it when I don’t have the time or mental/emotional space to make it happen. My country is on fire and this is how I'm dissociating. A post-apocalyptic world speaks to me in a way it never has. I'm sort of famously anti-post-apocalyptic settings/stories... What I don’t know: How long this story will be or what it will, ultimately, contain. What tags, spoilers, characters, or rating will be necessary for this story. How much or how often I’ll update. How much time or creative energy I’ll have to give. Whether or not this story will be spicy. But consider the source and prepare thyself.

Look at this man. I feel like me writing about him is beyond predictable.

[sunscreenstudies]

local girl writes essay she's been dreading for over a month, completes it easily and successfully within a single hour

will she learn from this experience?

probably not

[pinescent-and-gingerbread]

(Sooo, remember when I was repeating all the time that life would be easier for me after mid April)

(and that I could come back here full force and publish more and all)

(well life is a b****)

[narislvr]

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ Ahhh, Thank you so much for requesting and of course! ♡ Valeria would definitely be the type to tease reader saying stuff along the lines of "told you they were, demonios," but would offer her support and comfort regardless because she simply loves you that much. This may be a tad bit rushed but I hope you enjoy! <3

── p.s : I accidentally deleted the original post I was gonna use to respond to the ask thus why it's posted like this-

req by: @cerise-on-top

Your hair was damp against Valeria’s stomach as she gently combed through it with her calloused fingers. Her touch was slow and tender, leaving on your scalp a lulling sensation as you continued your rant about your day's events.

“It was ten minutes, Vale! Ten!”

You look up momentarily from where your head was resting on her lap only to find her already looking down at you with a mocking, yet loving, grin on her lips. “That’s why you don’t leave children unattended, Linda. You of all people should know that,” She taunts, poking the tip of your nose with her free hand in amusement as your eyes narrowed at her actions. Of course, she knew you weren’t at fault, but she couldnt help the lighthearted laughter that rumbled through her as you swatted her finger from your face.

"I didn't leave them unattended, I simply let them play in their centers while I finished the screening tests for the last three kids.. I didn't think that they'd be able to drop the whole paint bottle tray on the floor the one second I'm not looking up!" You groan, hands coming up to rub at your temples as you recalled the memory.

-

With holiday break only being a week away, first semester screening tests were being done to make sure that the kids were learning the things necessary before the end of the year, and so far nothing had gone wrong. Usually while you performed these mini tests, you had your TA keep an eye on the kids in the room whilst you sat with your small group in one of the corner tables, but she was out sick and you still needed to get this last group done so you were responsible for keeping track of everything at once.

You definitely had this under control.

The kids were usually relatively calm and would tend to stay in their play area's while you were busy unless they needed help with anything but that was normal. And yeah, they could be a bit loud, but it was never anything so bad that you would have to turn your attention away from your task.

You definitely this under control. you had forgotten that they had had a sweet treat for snack time only a few moments prior.

Everything was going well, perfect even, until you heard the loud sound of heavy plastic hitting the floor and the yelps and giggles from the children in the corner of the room.

-

"Of course the first thing I did was make sure everyone was okay, but Vale, the paint was everywhere! Juan had paint all over his pants and shoes and thought I was mad so he ran away and left paint all over the rest of the floor. I told the kids to just leave it while I tried to make sure Juan knew I wasn't mad, but they decided they'd try and help clean it up and really only got more paint on themselves," You sighed, carefully switching your position from resting on her lap to laying against her side, head resting against her chest as she gently wrapped her arm around your waist.

There was a light grimace on her face as she thought about your story. She already wasn't fond of kids, thinking of them as nothing more than literal demons, inconveniences, leaving chaos with everything they touched, so the thought of running behind children covered in paint only served as further deterance from ever wanting kids. "No entiendo cómo le haces, I would've been fired the moment I heard the thing fall down. Probably way before then" She mumbles, earning a small laugh from you as you look up at her and send her a playful disaproving look. She only shakes her head, a hint of a grin on her lips as she raises a brow and meets your gaze, "Que te ries, eh? We both know I would've gone off on all of them. Apenas si tengo la paciencia to deal with grown ass men, imagine me with a group of 18 chamacos. You're doing God's work, Linda."

She presses a kiss against your temple, her fingers gently tapping a lazy rhythm against your stomach as you close your eyes and smile to yourself. You knew Valeria probably had a stressful day herself, it being noticeable due to the heavy bags beneath her eyes and the way she seemed want nothing less but to close her eyes and slip into some much needed slumber, but she still made time to listen to you. Your days were nothing compared to hers, and even if she wasn't the most outwardly affectionate with words, she still never failed to let you know she cared. That you were loved, heard.

"Maybe I should bring you with me to work next time my partner doesn't come in. Would definitely make my day easier" You murmur against her chest, a cheeky tone in your tired voice as you burry yourself closer to her. You hear her scoff and you chuckle once more, not having to raise your head to know there was a look of horror on her face at your suggestion.

"Ya mejor vete a dórmir, you're talking nonsense, chula," She exhales, feign annoyance in her voice as she rests her head over yours, holding you close.

"Was just a thought. You should consider it sometime."

A moment of silence.

"Vale?"

"Hm?"

"I love you."

"I know."

"You're not gonna say it back?"

"You know I love you. More than anything. Even if you do still smell like paint."

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ translations:

── Linda: "Pretty"

── No entiendo cómo le haces: "I don't know how you do it"

── Que te ries: "what are you laughing at?"

── Apenas si tengo la paciencia: "I barely have the patience"

── Chamacos: "Children"

── Ya mejor vete a dormir: "Go to sleep instead"

[dazais-guardian-angel]

Well, at least Fukuzawa got his wish granted, I guess.... he's finally inside Fukuchi <3

[hikarry]

"You have no idea," Crowley whispers, leaning in closer still, his lips hovering just above the angel's. "Once I have you all to myself, I'll show you such sinful things, you'll forget you were ever an angel…"

I am sick, I am depressed and my adhd is acting up, therefore all claims that I might be projecting onto Crowley are all irrelevant

[ibijau]

the beauty of a creative hobby is that it will motivate you to do literally anything but it

[regao-o]

It's so hot in here 🫠

[boyneptunee]

[forcewound]

dreams that dog through every past.

ava du mortain/natalie sewell / ~2.6 words / rated M

Ava and Nat both have their nightmares. No one helps them weather the tempest of their minds better than each other.

(on ao3)

[shayid-brainrot]

what fic should i prioritize this week??

link to Headstones and Landmines (my shannon/sayid backstories fic) - it's just shannon thus far, but i might start alternating shannon/sayid every few chapters

link to angsty shayid one-shot